


hidden far away (prologue)

by Feather (lalaietha)



Series: your blue-eyed boys [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: C-PTSD, Disabled Character, Fix-It, Mentally Ill Character, Multi, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-Winter Soldier (movie), Psychological Trauma, Recovery, Searching for Bucky, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-26
Updated: 2014-05-26
Packaged: 2018-01-26 13:53:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1690658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lalaietha/pseuds/Feather
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s a room with a bare floor, one window. It’s got six or seven flats of water stacked in one corner, beside flats of canned stuff like soup. No sign of any way to heat them. A little line of tooth-brush-soap-baking-soda in a plastic container. Steve picks up the baking soda and can’t decide whether he should think it’s a hopeful sign. It’s what they used to use, but who knows?</p>
            </blockquote>





	hidden far away (prologue)

**Author's Note:**

> Prologue for [your blue-eyed boys](http://archiveofourown.org/series/107477); the series should be treated as one story. The story uses only MCU canon up to _Captain America: The Winter Soldier_ and extrapolates only from stuff actually in the films, plus [my previous series](http://archiveofourown.org/series/19685).

#####  _what i want to know is : how do you like your blue-eyed boy, Mr Death?_

###### \- untitled poem, e.e. cummings

 

Steve hates that Banner’s probably right.

In the end, Steve broke down and asked Stark for help. And these days more or less anything you tell Stark you might as well tell Banner and, as far as Steve can tell, Elizabeth Ross. And, for that matter, Pepper Potts and possibly James Rhodes, who Steve has yet to meet. The point is, in general, Stark's secrets are their secrets. The only time he keeps secrets from them, Steve gathers, is when he's on track for a major mental breakdown.

That part doesn’t bother him. In fact, it came with the nice side effect of introducing Sam to Stark, which very rapidly lead to Stark promising Sam a new set of wings, which at least makes Steve think his friend’s getting something out of this whole enterprise - something besides the part where they’re both pretending he’s not here as much to keep Steve from going off the deep end as to help. And Potts is Stark's better half, and Rhodes is his other better half, which when you think about it explains a lot about Stark. And it's not like Rhodes is unfamiliar with need-to-know, or how it works.

Steve doesn't give a good God-damn what the US government knows about or what it thinks right now, as long as they don't get in his way. Rhodes knowing might actually help that.

As for Banner, it's self-evident that he's pretty good at keeping secrets. Steve thinks Elizabeth Ross might have more secrets locked away than anyone short of Natasha, though he doesn’t really know why he thinks that. Just something about her eyes sometimes. So that's all fine.

Banner’s also spent a lot of time not wanting to be found, though. Might have the most experience with it of anyone Steve has access to right now. So eventually Steve can’t ignore his half-wincing expression anymore and says, “What?”

Banner grimaces a bit and says, “If I’m honest with you, I don’t think you’ve got much of a chance of finding this guy.”

Ross is still looking at the files. There’s something about her posture that’s different. Steve can’t put his finger on it and besides, he’s distracted. It all goes in the same box, anyway: as long as it's not getting in his way, he doesn't care that much.

“SHIELD found you,” he says and Banner gives a humourless smile.

“SHIELD had an awful lot of extremely well-trained people looking, and they also knew where I started from, but - " he holds up his hand, "that’s not actually the point.

"The point is,” he goes on before Steve can get irritated, “even before that, when I got found before that, before SHIELD was the one looking - like when the General found me the first time? What made me pop up was that I wanted things." He shrugs, hands folded on the table in front of him. "Really basic things, but still. Like a roof over my head, clothes without holes in them, decent food to eat. People to talk to. I had a dog, at one point. People looking for me could stake out jobs that paid in cash, places you could disappear and live off the grid but where a white guy,” he gestures to himself, “would stand out a bit no matter what I did.”

He shrugs, but then taps the top edge of the file Ross is reading. “Nothing you’ve got there says he cares about any of that. Nothing you’ve said does either. _I_ don’t enjoy living as a beggar and I don’t like hurting people either. That puts limits on me, ones it doesn’t sound like your friend has.” He looks at Ross briefly and says, “If you do find him, I think it’ll be because he wants you to. Sorry. I know it’s kind of a downer. But you asked.”

Steve does not punch the table in frustration or rejection. He just nods and says, “I did. Thank you.”

And then shoves everything Banner said as far away from his mind as he can, because it doesn’t help.

Stark doesn’t say anything. Just sends over printouts of anything new that JARVIS finds via bonded courier - it’s not that he couldn’t email, Steve just hates staring at screens all the time - which since Steve’s moved back to New York doesn’t take any time at all. Stark being so quiet is unnerving. But so’s everything else.

 

Months pass and Stark still doesn’t say anything, and Steve still tries to pretend he doesn’t remember what Banner says, and that Banner’s not probably right.

 

The closest he ever gets from searching is a room in Prague and that’s dumb luck: someone who knew someone who knew someone and a chain of provenance so tenuous Steve probably shouldn’t even trust it, before it gets to Sharon and Sharon giving it to him, but he goes anyway, and Sam comes with him.

It’s a room with a bare floor, one window. It’s got six or seven flats of water stacked in one corner, beside flats of canned stuff like soup. No sign of any way to heat them. A little line of tooth-brush-soap-baking-soda in a plastic container. Steve picks up the baking soda and can’t decide whether he should think it’s a hopeful sign. It’s what they used to use, but who knows?

There’s nothing else, no clothes, no sign of anything to sleep on. The woman who owns the room shrugs and says one day the man who rented it from her didn’t come back, she was leaving it the way it was because he was paid up through the month, and then that one American lady got all excited about it. She says he looked young but who can tell, he spoke perfectly normal Czech and didn’t look like an American to _her_ , didn’t talk much, paid in cash. Speaking of which, thank you very much sir, a tip is always welcome.

Steve looks around the space and all he can think is there’s _nothing_ here. Like he can read Steve’s thoughts, Sam says, “Maybe he cleared some stuff out when he left.”

Steve’s still holding the baking soda, staring at it and the toothbrush. “You really think that?” he asks and Sam sighs.

“Nope.”

 

He keeps expecting someone to point out that the reason he can’t find Bucky is that there’s a body somewhere nobody can identify, rotting away until there’s only bones and the curiousity of the metal arm. He’s not sure if he’s glad no one’s pointed it out or not. He wishes he could stop pointing it out to himself.

 

And it’s winter, and he’s waiting for a new lead, and Banner _is_ right but in the end Steve doesn’t mind, it doesn’t matter, because he comes back to his building one day with his hands in his pockets and there’s someone leaning on the low brick wall that lines the walk and Steve knows exactly who it is. And it would be easier for someone to find Steve than the other way around, because he has a name, and a bank account, and a life, and like Banner said, these things show up.

People things.

Bucky’s clothes are all thrift-store worn and mismatched size and even taking that into account Steve thinks he’s dropped a lot of weight. The bones in his face are sharper, like they haven't been since he hit his growth spurt when they were kids. He still holds himself like a coiled spring, feels like an armed explosive, and watches Steve get closer like - like - honestly Steve doesn’t even know.

Steve's chest hurts and his throat closes. And he still makes himself stop a few steps back, a lot more steps back than he wants to, because it’s almost like there’s a charged line in the air he can feel. Where if he crosses it, if he pushes it, he’s asking for everything to go wrong.

How long they stand that way, he doesn’t know. It feels like forever, for _fucking ever_ , but anything would right now and Steve doesn’t know what time it is when he stopped so he can’t check with constants of the universe like a watch or a clock or the sun and besides the sun set already.

Long sleeves cover Bucky’s left arm, hide it from view, and his hand is hidden in his crossed arms. Right now he doesn’t look like a ghost-assassin that everyone whispered about for years and years, doesn't look like a terror in the shadows - but he does look like someone who could kill you if you made the wrong move, and like you’d be lucky if you ever knew what that move was.

Steve's pretty sure those worn clothes conceal at least a lot of knives, maybe something more.

Steve wants to say something. He should say something. He doesn't. He's done a lot of things that have been all kinds of crazy and yet right here and right now is when for a minute fear gets in and stops him from doing _anything_ , because there are so many ways this can go wrong, and go wrong in the ways nothing can fix.

Bucky says, “I don’t remember you." His voice is low and sounds scraped over with either disuse or too much. "I don’t know you.”

And it’s kind of like being kicked in the chest, and it kind of kicks everything Steve’d been working up the nerve to say back out of his head, which is probably for the best because then Bucky looks away, over Steve’s head to the left like he’s staring through years and says, “But I . . . remember . . . that I did. On the bridge. And a few hours after. Before they took it.”

And Steve thinks, _oh God_ , and probably the sincerest prayer he’s ever said in a lifetime of praying, _oh God, if I’ve ever done anything that pleased You, if I've ever done a single thing right, please let this be the right thing to do. Please._

_Please._

And he says out loud, “Come inside. Please.” And when Bucky’s eyes snap back to his face Steve adds, “It’s cold out here.”

And it takes a minute. But after that minute Bucky nods, and doesn’t move as Steve walks past him to take out his keys and unlock the door.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] hidden far away (prologue)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2356193) by [sallysparrow017](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sallysparrow017/pseuds/sallysparrow017)




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